On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 10:41:00 -0400, Brad
wrote:

Hi Brad,

I'm new to woodturning ( my lathe should arrive in a week ) and just had
a large Poplar tree fall in my backyard from the last hurricane.
Is it worth my time to cut the tree up and keep pieces ?

Absolutely. Not only because it is the BEST kind of wood (free!) but
also because it is outstanding to practice on. Pretty much any green,
hardwood is excellent to practice with, because it cuts so nice and
you can spend more energy on learning technique, form and so on and
not have to worry about ruining a "nice" piece of dried hardwood.

How does Poplar compare to other woods in regard to the beauty of the
finished product ?

Plain old poplar is pretty bland stuff. Up here in the Northeast it
has almost no character at all, grain or figure. Finished it's okay,
but personally I would just cut it up to use for practice wood. (It
doesn't even burn all that great, smoldering when it's green and
burning up like a match when it's dry.)

If it isn't a preferred wood, I could use it for practice.

Absolutely. I would recommend, though, if you have the space, keep it
in as large chunks as you can manage, and paint the ends with anchor
seal, just to keep it from splitting up on you. Then, when it comes
time to use some, just hack off a hunk, re-seal the remainder with
anchor seal and have at it. That way you have fewer exposed ends to
worry about checking, and much less loss to cracks. Even though it's
practice wood, you still want it to be as check-free as possible.

Yeah, Brad, I'd say you had yourself a real windfall there...heheh




--
Chuck *#:^)
chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
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September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

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